Soil | Water and salinity management | Biodiversity | Carbon sequestration | GMO's

Environment: Carbon sequestration

As forests grow, they absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store or "sequester" the carbon in woody tissue. With a significant emphasis on the role of carbon in global warming, forests have the potential to provide a "sink" for carbon as they grow, taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in timber.

There is also the potential to sell this carbon to a carbon trading market should this market evolve. Currently, the market for carbon is small, with a number of trades being undertaken by companies as part of an integrated risk management strategy.

A critical aspect of carbon trading is Australia’s policy on the Kyoto Protocol, setting out emissions reductions targets for countries who are signatories.

To facilitate a carbon market, not only does Australia need to define a policy approach, legislation is required enabling property rights for carbon sequestered in trees, a carbon accounting framework needs to be developed setting out the specific issues associated with measuring and verifying the amount of carbon stored in plantations, and market access mechanisms need to be developed.

As the carbon trading market evolves over time, there is the potential for investment funds to flow into forest plantation development.

Examples of tree planting programs currently under way with timber and carbon co-investment can be found at Department of Sustainability and Environment and Forests NSW.

From 1 January 2003, the existing NSW greenhouse benchmarking scheme changed to impose greenhouse gas emission benchmarks on electricity retailers and large electricity users. This has lead to the creation of a fledgling market in several forms of emission abatement certificates. For more information refer to the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme.

The National Carbon Accounting Toolbox & Data Viewer will enable plantation managers to monitor the effects of plantation forestry on greenhouse gas emissions using their own computer.

Other links can be found at Australasian Emissions Trading Forum, the Australian Greenhouse Office, the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting and the International Emissions Trading Association.

Soil | Water and salinity management | Biodiversity | Carbon sequestration | GMO's